As the thick curtain of cigarette smoke lifted and the house lights came on, I turn around to survey the aftermath. Beer, cigarette butts, and a few drops cover the floor of Rubber Gloves, a local bar/recording study/live music venue in Denton, TX, just a stone’s throw from the University of North Texas.
Let’s back up to the start of the night:
Denton, a small college town north of Dallas, does not inspire thoughts of Japanese rock. Well, there is no better way to kick off a 3-day weekend than to indulge in a little noise rock. So, I grabbed some friends and we went to see Japan’s premiere champions of thrash: Melt-Banana.
Before we get to their performance, I have to give some serious props to the opening acts. The night started off with self-proclaimed “cowboy/jazz†ensemble, Count Dracula’s Weed Smuggling Jam Engine. The most coherent band of the night, Dracula brought some nice melodies and a little bit of groove. Despite a very shaky start and constant feedback from the monitors, they delivered a solid set.
After that, xBxPx took the stage and began us on our noise rock odyssey. The amount of time that they were not playing is equivalent to the amount of time it took you to read this sentence. The band from Oakland came on like gangbusters and left just a quickly. The quintet came off as a fusion between The Hive, Rage against the Machine, and Melt-Banana…, which might be why they were selected from a pool of 15 bands to tour with the Tokyo troupe.
Onto the main event! Melt-Banana inspired something from me that I never thought possible: pity for the security team. Imagine a room no bigger than the inside of a small corner convenience store. Now cram 300 people and side and let them start moshing and shoving. That was the seen an hour ago. There were ill-conceived stage rushing, crowd surfing face plants, and a very entertaining female fistfight.
The entire time, the band continued to supply a soundtrack to the mayhem. Playing tracks from their old album (mostly tracks from Charlie) and a lot of new songs from their upcoming release Bambi’s Dilemma, the Banana kept the ferocity up all night.
The fury was overseen by front-woman Yasuko O. Yasuko’s high-pitched voice doesn’t sing or harmonize. It bursts forth like staccato gunfire, peppering the frantic music. When she is not making like a Japanese Zack de la Rocha, Yasuko is sweet and charming in the way she address the audience.
Guitarist Ichirou Agata remained enigmatic behind a surgical face mask, but he let the guitar speak for him. With creative neck slides that screamed out like Tom Morello on meth (sorry for all the Rage references…) and some of the most ingenious fretwork I have witnessed live, Agata creates the perfect counterpoint to Yasuko’s vocals.
On bass, Rika mm’ was a woman possessed. With all of the madness going on around her, she remained absolutely calm and reserved, letting the funky four string in her hands keep the entropy organized into pulse pounding anarchy.
I have an advance copy of Bambi’s Dilemma. Compared to previous albums, it has a much more polished sound and focused direction. The composition is spot on, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find an American equivalent for such hardcore sounds.
There are no disposable tracks; a first for noise-rock. The entire CD plays like their live show. It starts of deceptively endearing, but drops all pretense seconds after it starts and proceeds to blow your eardrums through the back of your head. Unlike other noise rocks outfits like The Boredoms that use nature sounds and unconventional instruments, Melt-Banana ratchets up the distortion and pure noise with a standard rock set-up.
The entire album feels like a step in the right direction for the group. Instead of an onslaught that cause confusion with ambiguous track breaks, Bambi’s Dilemma feels more solid and tangible on a musical level. Anyone interested in hearing a foreign sound (in more ways than one), this album is a definite pick-up.
Tonight they’ll be in Austin, TX followed by a stop in my hometown, Houston. For complete tour info, check out their website. Honestly, even if you don’t like noise rock, the energy alone is worth the price of admission.
